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Tuesday, 29 April 2014

Weeds – How to forage for free superfoods

Exotic superfoods are in fashion at the moment. There’s cacao, spirulina, chia seeds and coconut water – just to name a few. Many superfoods not only come with a high price tag, they can also have high environmental and social costs.

Transported from the corners of the globe, superfoods often come with super food miles. Our demand for these foods is also impacting upon the communities from which they come. For example, our taste for quinoa has inflated prices so much that poorer people in Peru and Bolivia can no longer afford to eat their staple grain.

Thankfully, there are sustainable and ethical superfoods available for free and you’ll likely find them in your own backyard.

Read descriptions and browse images of these plants online and in books. You’ll be surprised that, once you know what you are looking for, a weed that you hadn’t noticed previously will suddenly appear everywhere.

Before you eat something, collect a sample and confirm that you have identified it correctly. Either ask an experienced forager or compare what you have with a formal description.

Where to forage for weeds

Good places to forage include your own garden, a friend’s garden or a local community garden.

When foraging, you want to avoid places that may have been sprayed with herbicide or are likely to be polluted. Avoid busy road verges and areas surrounding old painted buildings because these areas are likely to be contaminated with lead and other heavy metals.

How to eat foraged greens

Once you know how to find and identify weedy greens, you can start including them in your diet.

Collect tender young leaves and use them as you would salad greens or spinach. Use them in frittatas or omelettes, in stir-fries, pesto, or simply steamed or sauteed. You can also use them in green smoothies.

I hope that one day, foraging weeds is perceived as normal as opening up a plastic bag of hydroponically grown spinach leaves.

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Weeds – How to forage for free superfoods

Exotic superfoods are in fashion at the moment. There’s cacao, spirulina, chia seeds and coconut water – just to name a few. Many superfoods not only come with a high price tag, they can also have high environmental and social costs.

Transported from the corners of the globe, superfoods often come with super food miles. Our demand for these foods is also impacting upon the communities from which they come. For example, our taste for quinoa has inflated prices so much that poorer people in Peru and Bolivia can no longer afford to eat their staple grain.

Thankfully, there are sustainable and ethical superfoods available for free and you’ll likely find them in your own backyard.

Read descriptions and browse images of these plants online and in books. You’ll be surprised that, once you know what you are looking for, a weed that you hadn’t noticed previously will suddenly appear everywhere.

Before you eat something, collect a sample and confirm that you have identified it correctly. Either ask an experienced forager or compare what you have with a formal description.

Where to forage for weeds

Good places to forage include your own garden, a friend’s garden or a local community garden.

When foraging, you want to avoid places that may have been sprayed with herbicide or are likely to be polluted. Avoid busy road verges and areas surrounding old painted buildings because these areas are likely to be contaminated with lead and other heavy metals.

How to eat foraged greens

Once you know how to find and identify weedy greens, you can start including them in your diet.

Collect tender young leaves and use them as you would salad greens or spinach. Use them in frittatas or omelettes, in stir-fries, pesto, or simply steamed or sauteed. You can also use them in green smoothies.

I hope that one day, foraging weeds is perceived as normal as opening up a plastic bag of hydroponically grown spinach leaves.